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Tomorrow's Environment: Integrated Project Delivery

Moving
both parties to the same side of the table, it’s the long-awaited
answer to D-B project delivery problems.

I’ve
been involved in the design-build (D-B) of building infrastructure
for more then 20 years and have had the opportunity to be part of
numerous D-B teams, including one quite challenging project, Pentagon
Wedges 2 through 5. When done correctly, D-B provides the following
benefits:

A
single-team solution to an owner’s building program

Project ownership by the team (no fingerpointing)

Creative solutions based on input and experience from each team
members

A building program that can be
delivered within the program’s budget

No
changeorders for the owner

The results are
responsible and sustainable.

Unfortunately,
D-B has never achieved the success predicted back in the 1980s,
probably because there needed to be trust between the building
program owner and the D-B team, and that trust has always been a real
challenge for the owner. Owners need multiple prices on almost
everything because they don’t trust that first price they receive.
As a result, they struggle with accepting one D-B team’s proposal.

Sometimes
the problem can be resolved via an owner representative who
facilitates the process. Although the owner is more than likely to be
skeptical, many so-called D-B firms have given the project delivery
process a bad name for a wide range of reasons that defy the intent
of D-B. This behavior is the cornerstone of why owners don’t trust
the project scope and cost estimate.

IPD To The Rescue

Fortunately,
this is all changing with the introduction of the integrated project
delivery (IPD) process. It takes the owner, sitting across the table
from the single-source solution firm, and moves the two together on
the same side of the table. Instead of the owner producing a building
program and identifying a project soft-cost/hard-cost budget,
followed by a designer interpreting the owner’s project
requirements, and the builder putting a construction cost together,
the IPD team (owner, designer, and builder) work together to draft
the building program and program cost. They agree to share the risk
and not to sue each other in the process, and “agreement via
consensus” is the rule.

With this project
delivery method set to take hold in 2009, I believe the process is
going to need an IPD Facilitator to navigate the owner, designer, and
builder through uncharted waters.

Not to
change the subject, but there has been a big push in recent years to
establish certification programs for various specialty skills, such
as commissioning and health care HVAC design. While I’m not an
advocate of certified commissioning professional status because there
are at least five certification programs and yet there are no
industry standards for commissioning, I do think a “Certified IPD
Facilitator” is needed to navigate the broad range of tasks and
activities associated with the IPD process. Without the IPD
Facilitator, who will be leader, captain, and/or chairman of the
board for an IPD project? Before the job even gets started, I can
envision the designer and the builder both positioning themselves to
be facilitator.

So in 2009, I’m thinking
about developing an IPD Facilitator Certification program with the
first certified IPD Facilitator being, well, me. Heck, to run the
program you need to be certified, right? My goal is to focus on
infrastructure upgrades, chiller and boiler plant expansion, and
energy retrofits. Based on lessons learned, we can move on to
building construction projects.

To get my
certification programming in place, I have come up with 15 important
categories requiring IFP Facilitator proficiency. Here is my
certification program outline:

Contracts

Communication

Goal setting

Quality control
process

Writing owner’s project
requirements (OPR)

Writing basis of design
documents (BofD)

Risk management

Scheduling (project and occupants)

Smart/sustainable software

Asset
management

Document management

LEED®

BIM
design-construct-operate-maintain CAD documents

Estimating (hard costs and soft costs)

Commissioning

I’m
really excited about this long-overdue building program method that
joins the owner with all the other equally skilled professional who
come together to fulfill a IPD project as a team - sharing
experience, skills, risks, and rewards as a true single-source
solution, working toward “One Project – One Goal – One Result.”
ES

Engineered Systems magazine’s May 2020 issue examines the revitalization of air-cooled chillers in data center facilities, the viability (or lack thereof) of duct systems, the impact the coronavirus is having on the built environment, and much more.